


See it Fall, Child of War (Lend a Mending Hand)

by thewingedoctopus



Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: F/F, Slow Burn, and eve couldnt give less of a shit because shes got a job to do goddammit, and you know what maybe eve is tired of cleaning and wants to be the one making the mess, but they are and always will be our star crossed lovers, description of blood and gore incoming, forensic cleaner and assassin au, killing eve if eve wasnt a security consultant but a crime scene cleaner (along with the gang), our baby vee is going to be very upset to know its not her amazingness that keeps the police away, smut will happen, strangers to hated coworkers to friends to lovers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-29
Packaged: 2021-03-02 17:00:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24170215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thewingedoctopus/pseuds/thewingedoctopus
Summary: Villanelle sneers. “My cleaner?”“Did you honestly think that you weren’t getting caught by the good holy grace of God himself?” Eve’s eyes are wide in disbelief but a smile tugs at the corner of her lips anyway. She laughs. “You thought leaving heaps upon heaps of bodies behind you and not once getting tapped on the shoulder was just pure luck?”“I am amazing,” Villanelle hisses. “I am amazing at what I do.”“Not that amazing,” Eve counters. “Otherwise, I wouldn’t be cleaning up after you.”An AU in which Eve Polastri is a forensics cleaner for the Twelve, anonymously assigned to their assassin Villanelle who has no idea that she's not as sensational as she initially thought.
Relationships: Eve Polastri/Villanelle | Oksana Astankova
Comments: 52
Kudos: 188





	1. She's Like a Sickness in my Brain

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone, Killing Eve season 3 has been absolutely beating my ass and I can't get enough of our two favorite ladies and reading all your amazing works has been helping with that, so here's a new contribution of mine for anyone else who feels the same!  
> Please, let me know what you think!  
> Lots of love x
> 
> (Title from First Aid Kit's song 'Wolf'!)

“Will half an hour be enough?”

“Is this an actual question?”

“Not particularly, no. But it’s more proper to ask, apparently.”

Though Eve is alone in her kitchen she can’t help the aggravated roll of her eyes and the smile that graces her lips. She straightens from leaning over her island counter and plucks her phone from between neck and shoulder to switch ears. Behind her, the pot on the stovetop is bubbling dangerously and she hastens to lower the heat and stir. “What it’ll be, then?”

“Standard proceedings. Nothing too fancy, I’m afraid. We need this done tonight.”

Standard proceedings. “That’s fine.”

“Files will be sent to your phone momentarily; you know what to do next.”

Once again it’s far from a question. Eve sighs and places her slotted spoon on her counter. “I’ll send Kenny my new phone number in the morning. I really liked this model, is there anyway that I can get the same one again?”

Carolyn’s hum is clipped and Eve waits dutifully. Irritatingly. “Nature of the job, Eve.”

“Should I call Bill or will you?”

“No team. You’re the only one on duty.”

Eve lets out a low whistle and pushes her hips into one of the counters until she’s sure it’ll leave a line in her skin. “Is this your way of saying you’re giving me a promotion?”

“This is a particular case: an operative’s first UK based mission. Very delicate stuff, I’m sure you understand. Their usual cleaning crew can’t be had and your-” Carolyn pauses momentarily. “-upbringing, is an asset.”

“Classy,” Eve deadpans. “You know, I was kidding about the promotion.”

“I’m sure you were. I trust you with this, Eve.”

“Wow.” She clears her throat. “Uh, okay. Thank you. That means a lot.”

“Check in tomorrow.”

The line beeps in her ear and Eve pulls it away to stare at her phone screen for a moment. It dings once, vibrates twice in the palm of her hand and her fingers run hot then cold, shake as she unlocks her home screen. 

The encrypted PDF is succinct. She pauses after reading her badge number and reaches for her wine glass and the bottle of red she’d originally opened for her boxed macaroni and cheese on her stove. The couch envelops her when she sinks into it. She’d hated it when Niko had first brought it home from a flea market, used cushions and the stale smell of smoke clinging to it. Now, it feels like a second skin during her late and lonely nights. When she doesn’t join him in their marital bed.

Kenny had been nice enough to attach the original call file to her own:

Vienna, a major blood vein, and a trafficker known in all the right circles, including theirs. She wasn’t privy to what he’d done to assure himself a sentencing but it had to have been something if he’d been assassinated out in broad daylight. 

She stares at the crime scene photos; the before and after of the carnage. Her European counterparts had settled for an unfortunate heart attack; cleaned the blood off the pavement and off the man and placed his blueing and bulging tongue outside his mouth. They’d even sewed the hole in the man’s pants up. She’s biting the inside of her cheek as she’s swiping down the pages, phone practically glued to her nose. 

Outside, a dog barks and she jumps in her seat, black eyes wide and trained on the windows. 

Eve turns back to her phone and continues to read. 

The operative (unnamed as always to keep anonymity and confidentiality throughout their ranks if anyone was compromised) had left the dead man’s much-too-young girlfriend alive. CCTV had followed her all the way to England, where she’d been promptly picked up by the authorities and given immunity by London’s finest, courtesy of Carolyn.

The assassin agent is, in an order file similar but not quite Eve’s own, instructed to finish their task. And properly, this time, between eleven and half past eleven. And then Eve has half an hour to clean the mess up. The last minutes of an entire day’s worth.

Eve opens her messenger app and gazes at her office group chat. Kenny is online, as always, and she knows Elena would check her phone as soon as it buzzed in her pocket. The young woman had been the one to name their chat Crime Scene Clean Up Crew, much to Bill’s dismay. 

She reads the file again diagonally and, after opening the back of the phone, drops the thing into her wine glass. Its contents slosh against the side and threaten to spill over. “There goes that,” she murmurs. She tips the bottle itself to the side regretfully: Niko had bought the cheap bottle of red for an even cheaper date night he was planning for them. She’d have to find some excuse for emptying it but she knew that ultimately, she was going to be met with disappointment behind an awfully stern moustache. As always. She glances up at the clock mounted on the wall and gets up. 

It’s a cold November wind that greets her outside and it pushes her coat up her thighs and under her thin, white clothes and she hurries down to the nearest bus station with her purse hung over her shoulder weighing her down. She sits to wait.

Standard Proceedings.

An assisted suicide. 

London General has always been God-sent for the crew and a personal favorite for Bill. Blood is normal in hospitals, and deaths not uncommon. As Eve flags the bus driver down, she hopes the operative thinks to use a scalpel or something easy to stage; she can’t fathom figuring out how to make a screwdriver and a plug socket look convincing in an infirmary again. 

The emergency room is oddly quiet when Eve sneaks in through the double doors. She nods at the nearest security guard and fights with her purse handles to find her janitor’s badge. The man sees too many faces a day to distinguish an Asian lady from any other Asian lady and Eve takes it. She bites back the bile at the back of her throat and reminds herself that the momentary shame is worth the end results. It’s worth Carolyn’s praise and Bill’s concerned frown. 

Eve keeps her head down and moves on with her evening. 

On the seventh floor the resident nurse welcomes her with a scowl. She’s stone-faced but kind enough to swipe Eve’s badge to clock her in. It’s a throwaway and ultimately it won’t show up on any archive records, Kenny’s always made sure of that. She leaves her purse under the desks in the cabinets and fetches a towel and a spritz bottle out from another. Eve looks everything the part washing outward facing windows. She is the décor. At ten before eleven, she leaves her mop and bucket to lean against a corner wall and heads to the bathroom. 

Eve finds the room empty but for the one working stall, locked and in use. She uses the mirror to fan her hair out and she strains to pull knots out carefully: her tools for the job are under her blouse and attached and she doesn’t want them clattering to the floor, she can’t risk being seen with anything incriminating by whoever’s in the stall behind her. Patient or doctor or otherwise. 

Her fingerprints have been gone for so long and yet she picks at them anyway as she waits, hoping to find any semblance of a ridge growing in. She reminds herself to ask for her yearly appointment to have them burnt off again. 

Finally the stall door opens and she focuses on her nailbeds instead: she’s a janitor on a toilet break, that’s all. 

Eve waits, and waits, and finally she glances sideways. The blonde nurse, done with the toilet, is staring at her, green eyes wide and mouth slightly open. The sink water runs continuously and echoes in the room. 

Eve laughs awkwardly, gaze shifting to the corners of everything. “You okay?”

The girl starts, pulled out of her momentary haze, and she turns to leave and Eve shrugs to herself. Ignored is better, as always. 

Eve remembers her first tasks as she glances at her watch, in the woods and down in abandoned buildings covering up for small time assassinations of little fish that would have led to bigger fish if they’d been allowed to talk, and she misses those days when her then-new teammates had been lenient in giving her all night to stage murder scenes. 

“Wear it down.”

It’s Eve’s turn to stare. The blonde nods, almost to herself, and slips through the door. 

Eve pulls her hair back up in a ponytail. 

oooOOOooo

“What a psycho.”

Eve swallows roundly around her fork and she points it emphatically at her coworker. “Right?” 

Across her, Elena continues to read Eve’s report meticulously written at three a.m after three glasses of wine and a long shower. 

“What I don’t get,” Elena takes a moment to sip from her straw cup. “Is why this guy would kill the Vienna target so fashionably, only to make this big of a mess two days later with his girlfriend.”

“Beats me. I guess they recruit anyone these days.”

Her coworker laughs. “Good on you though, Eve. Getting all that done, so quickly? And managing to stage it as a triple homicide-suicide?” She nods. “I don’t think I could have done it like you did.”

Eve frowns and swats Elena’s love-struck façade out of mind. “Hush. You’re brilliant.”

“God, what a lucky draw this girl was a drug aficionado.” Elena leans back in her chair, sighing.” Carolyn pitched me a drug dealer two years ago and I figured I’d have an easy time faking an overdose.” She rolls her eyes dramatically. “He was a weed dealer.”

“What did you expect from Carolyn?” They share a guffaw, hiding in their lunches as soon as the office door behind them starts to open.

Bill Pargrave slips in through the crack and waves, car keys clinking between his fingers. He looks disheveled and tired and Eve knows he’s not slept a wink because of his baby; his shoulder bag is falling down his arm. He barely reaches his office door that he turns with a long, dramatic sigh. 

“Oh,” Eve says. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“Office,” he quips. “Now.”

“Come on!”

“Now, Eve, I really don’t feel like making you do anything, so just do it, will you?”

She scrambles over her desk, messy as it is. “What about your 11 o’clock, you’re seeing Frank, remember?”

“Yes I am,” he says. “And you’re cordially invited.”


	2. A Vision Standing by the Window Pane

Eve holds her hands up. “I can explain.”

“Don’t,” Bill warns. “Sit down.” Eve winces visibly and does as she’s told and Bill watches her from across his desk. Finally and with an audible sigh, he sits heavily in his own chair and leans back. He spreads his arms wide. “Eve, what’s for lunch?”

She lets out the breath she’s been holding, lips flapping as she lets it become a raspberry at her best friend. “Niko’s angry with me. I’ve been stealing off of Elena all morning.”

“And I didn’t have time to pack anything, baby was needing her bottle all morning.” He pauses for a moment, glancing about as if looking for something. “Do you have the stamp card for the Thai Room or do I?”

“You have it,” Eve says. “Bill, why does Frank want to see me?”

Her elder sighs and leans over his desk to place his chin in his hands. “He filled me in about your field trip last night, passed me your report. He thinks you went behind his back to get this assignment.”

Eve gapes, takes her own side. “I didn’t!”

“I know, Eve.”

She watches him, frowning, but finally relents and leans forward too. “How did you like the report?”

“Loved it,” he replies. “You’re quite the writer when you’re three sheets to the wind.”

Her hand slaps the table jovially. “That’s what I’ve been saying!” 

“Found it.” He waves their shared stamp card at her. “I have your back, you know?”

Eve clips a sigh and lets her shoulders drop. “I know, thank you.”

Frank Haleton is a tall man who barely passes under the door and neither Eve nor Bill can help their shared look. Frank’s hand is quick to shoo Bill out of his own chair and he sits in it and quickly opens his briefcase. His grey eyes are locked on Eve as his hands move, his jaw tight. 

Finally, he slots his fingers together. “You went over my head.”

“Frank, she did not,” Bill sighs. “You know that.”

“No, Bill, she went over my head. She did not consult me on this and she, as my subordinate, is to consult me on any mission whatsoever. Don’t sit there and stand up for her.” Frank turns to Eve, snapping her out of her reverie. “Why did you even go on this mission? Who accepted it?”

“I did.”

The three turn and Frank swallows audibly, glancing away with a sudden resign. 

Carolyn Martens’ single eyebrow is raised and she waits in the doorway, file pressed against her chest tightly. “Am I late?” Frank licks his lips. “Good. Now-“ She waves Frank off Bill’s chair and takes it for herself. “Amazing report, Eve, truly. One could barely read through your disdain.”

“Right, that’s another thing.” Frank sits up. “You don’t have the right to judge an agent’s-“

Eve can’t help her nervous laughter, loud and wide. “Are you kidding? They almost blew the whole thing! Do you know how hard it is to stage a murder when your supposed murderer’s been foaming her brains out with ketamine for the last 24 hours?”

Carolyn intercepts them, and her words are carefully chosen. “This agent is very talented and as you’ve now noticed, temperamental. Mistakes do happen, which is why your division exists.”

“Well, they need a leash.”

Her boss watches her carefully. “I will be reminding their handler, then.”

Eve pauses. “Wait, I mean, you don’t have to do that, I was just-“

“Have you ever been to Berlin, Eve?”

“I-, No?”

“Is your passport up to date?”

Frank bolts upright in his seat. “You can’t be serious!”

Carolyn’s gray eyes fix themselves on the man. “You know very well that we’re in need of a cleaner with a remarkable turnaround time for this particular agent. Eve was given an almost impossible task and managed it with time to spare and included a report on my desk that exact morning. If you would wish to volunteer someone else, Frank, you may.” The man falls back in his chair, fuming, but quiet. 

“Good,” Carolyn says. She links her fingers together, knuckles white. “In three days, our agent will be dispatching a high-profile target as per our request in the center of Berlin, all under the guise of a one-hour doctor’s appointment. The target is a government official and will need to be cleaned up quickly and efficiently, most preferably before the next patient walks into the office.”

“A German official?” Eve asks. 

“No.” Her boss places a file on the desk and turns it before sliding it across to Eve. “Will you be taking the job?”

“Are you kidding?” Eve laughs. “Yes, I’ll do it.”

“If this goes well, Eve, you will be looking at being permanently attached to this agent, as their official cleaner.” Carolyn leans back slightly. “Congratulations.”

Eve’s mouth drops in awe and she glances at Bill, her friend holding up his hands with a smile. “Thank you.”

Carolyn’s lips twitch and she sighs with finality. She stands. “You leave tomorrow morning.”

“Oh, uh-“

“Yes?”

“There’s just a little problem,” Eve says. “I don’t speak German.” Grunts travel around the desk, echoed through her three higher-ups and Eve frowns. “Jesus, okay, sorry.”

“The target is Chinese,” Frank says. “Do you at least-“ he makes a mocking grimace, demanding of her. “-speak Chinese?”

Eve takes a moment to breathe in and out of her nose. “No. He’s going to be dead anyway, won’t he?”

“Truly, Frank, not every Asian person speaks Chinese.” Carolyn breaks the tension. “We will have someone shadow you then, from the tech department or so.”

Bill shrugs heavily in his chair. “I can go.”

Eve gapes. “Bill-“

“I was stationed in Berlin for years, I know the city.” He gives her a big smile. “Plus, I’ll get to keep an eye on you.”

oooOOOooo

“I have seen her before.” 

Konstantin pauses mid-chew and glances up from under his heavy brow. He doesn’t turn his head. The girl’s not looking at him anyway, hazel eyes on the windows and mind faraway as she pushes sausages and grated potatoes around a sizzling pan. He finishes his toast topped with tomato and olive oil and thinks sadly that if she continues to daydream, his lunch will be burnt and he will have to go to the airport hungry. He swallows audibly, tries to push her to break gaze with the skyline, but she doesn’t bite. 

Finally, he sighs lowly. “Seen who?”

“Hmm?”

“Who have you seen before?”

The blonde, tall and strong and with blood already bleached down the kitchen sink, abruptly stops. Her gaze wills to strike him down but he’s so used to it and her that it leaves him staring back, waiting. She huffs. “This woman I saw on the sidewalk, near the clinic. After the kill.”

“The world is small,” Konstantin offers. “It happens.”

She turns away again, scowling now as she racks her pretty brains. Konstantin’s stomach growls. “I swear, she is the same woman I saw at the-“ her words trail off, her eyes widen. 

He waits and his eyebrows fly toward his hairline more and more. “Villanelle!” he booms.

“I am being followed.”

He laughs, a deep staccato bellow that sounds wrong echoing in the Berlin hotel suite. “What?”

“She was in London, at the hospital.”

“Who?”

“The woman near the clinic!” Villanelle is already across the room and fishing for her cellphone. She checks the time. “She might still be there, I am going back.”

“Villanelle-“

She laughs, high and mocking. “Oh no, Konstantin, I am not about to be at a crossroads with the police in a city as ugly as this one.”

oooOOOooo 

“That was _not_ a doctor’s appointment.”

“I know, Eve.”

“I can’t believe she would-I can’t believe-“ Eve stomps her foot like a petulant child. She’s upset and she’s sure she’s more than in the right to be. She turns to Bill. “You know what? Fuck Carolyn. Fuck Fat Panda!”

“Do you need help?”

Eve’s anger melts away as quickly as it’s come and she stands there, embarrassed in her state of half-dress, dress pooling around her waist. “Yes, please.” As Bill stands from the bed to fix her up, her pout returns. “The file said the agent would fake a heart attack.”

“They did, didn’t they?”

Eve scowls. “Yeah but they didn’t have to go and add cock and ball torture to the mix, Jesus fuck.” She cranes her neck to glance at her friend. “It’s like they’re trying to sabotage my cleanups.”

“They don’t know who you are, and you don’t know who they are,” Bill reminds her. “Why would they try sabotaging you?”

“I don’t know!”

“You’re just mad you had to touch some person’s scrotum.”

“Don’t call it that,” Eve begs.

Bill finishes zipping her up. “Cut or uncut?” Eve groans and Bill laughs as he sidesteps away, chortling. He throws her her purse from off the bedside table. “Come on, I’ll walk you to the subway station, it's the least I can do. Especially since I don’t need you being late meeting up with Jin, he’s a busy man you know. You have that copy of the report for him? And the receipt?”

“I have it,” Eve mutters darkly. "In English."

“Alright, alright,” Bill chuckles. “Come on, we get this done and we’ll be home soon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so appreciative of you all, your feedback, and your love for this story!  
> If you've enjoyed this chapter, please let me know! Next one will be up as soon as possible :)


	3. She Ripples Through the Blinds

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just an FYI: in this story, the kill in Bulgaria happens AFTER Berlin! 
> 
> Kiss kiss, love you all! Here's to season 3 and the finale coming up!!

“You have to give it a few days,” Konstantin drawls. He passes her a postcard of Bulgaria’s capital city and digs back into his lunch.

Villanelle peers at him from over her plate and slides it over to her side. “Why? I do not want to waste more time on this than I already have waiting for you to send me some snail mail.”

“Because that is how it is. Do not pout.”

“If the target is already there, why should I wait to go?” the girl said. “What if he was to leave earlier than expected and I missed him entirely?”

“You will not.”

“But what if I do!” Villanelle snaps back. Her eyes narrow and she watches her handler. “Why do you not want me to go?”

Konstantin flounders around for a moment, smacking his lips and tweaking his fingers around themselves. Villanelle stands to face him, dangerously close, and she jabs a nail into his thick chest. 

He winces slightly.

“Tell me, Konstantin. You know I can give you a world of hurt.”

He frowns. “Why do you always resort to threatening me, hmm? You hurt my feelings. I take care of you and cherish you like my own daughter and-”

Villanelle snaps her fingers in his face. “Konstantin!”

The portly Russian lets out a grunt and turns away to grab a glass from above the sink. He fills it to the brim with cool water and takes a long swig. “You have to wait for your team before going there.” He drinks again. “There, are you happy?”

“My team?” she echoes. “I do not have a team.”

“You do. You always have had.” He shakes his head. 

The blonde’s scowl deepens until her face turns into something grotesque with rage. 

Konstantin shrugs lamely. “Did you honestly think I was the only one who kept an eye on you? I cannot keep you safe all by myself, you must know that.” Villanelle’s hand goes up, up over her head and she’s aiming for his face but he is a viper in these moments, striking to catch her before she can land a blow. He twists her arm until he sees what resembles panic in her eyes and he sighs. “Do not be childish, Villanelle.” 

She pulls away sharply. “I hate you.”

“The feeling is mutual.” He pulls away. “You keep messing up, you are lucky to be getting another job so quickly.”

“You cannot punish me for something I am instructed to do.”

“Under the radar, Villanelle!”

She laughs mockingly, a spelled out “ha” that sounds so alien, even to herself. “I have never been caught!”

oooOOOooo

Bill is falling to the floor in hazy lights of blue and green and smoke in tendrils around the dancers and it’s all Eve can see and smell and hear, replaying his last moments in her head as if she was there again in that underground nightclub. What happened, is all they ask, what went wrong? Did anything; his blood is warm, pumping out in jets of crimson on her hands just like it should and her clothes are soaked and he’s reaching for nothing as he crumples to the floor slick with sweat. 

She’s sitting in a white painted wooden pew behind his widow and dark little eyes poking out from underneath a toddler sized bonnet and she remembers falling, her heels slipping in his crying eyes though he had been gone already, gone as soon as the vixen had slipped her knife into his chest and ripped Eve’s heart out, the music so loud that it drowned his heartbeat. 

And when Carolyn stands across the table and watches over Kenny’s shoulder as he types his report, Eve is as dry as a bone left to rot in a desert and she cannot cry anymore. 

She can only seethe and pray for his departed soul, wherever it may be. 

The demon’s face is hazy, a mask fazing in and out between two lights yet smiling, always smiling with green eyes blazing in the dark.

“I’ve told you all I fucking saw,” Eve snaps. “She’s blonde, she’s tall, and she murdered Bill!” Her hair is wild, tangling against itself and turning into a monster of its own. “Who the fuck is she, Carolyn? Why wasn’t she stopped?”

“Taller than you?”

“Fuck you, Kenny.”

The boy’s hurt and she can tell; he’s just doing his job after all and he’s never been good with showing his emotions and his mom is breathing down his neck. 

She sighs, irritated. “Yes, taller than me. Five feet, ten inches, maybe. I didn’t see her shoes.”

“Thanks,” he murmurs. 

Carolyn circles them. “The hospital, Eve?”

“She must be working for the police, or MI6 or something, I’m sure she was following me. How else would she have known Bill would be there that night?” She gets sad again, looks away. “I don’t understand how I would have been compromised, how she keeps finding me. Do you think she put a tracker on me, somehow?”

The air is thick with unsaid things.

“Bill was onto something, before he-“ Kenny breathes in sharply, looks away. “His computer is slow.”

“What does it matter? He’s not going to use it again.”

“No, I mean-“ the boy shifts his weight from foot to foot and finally he pushes his way to Bill’s desk, sitting in his chair and turning his desktop screen on. Its light is harsh and blue and Eve wants to smile at the picture of Bill’s daughter as the wallpaper but tears well up in the corner of her eyes instead. Kenny ignores her to save her dignity. Carolyn doesn’t care. “Someone’s been duplicating his screen.”

The mouse waves between icons to Kenny’s whim but the frames per second are off, awkward and jumbled and jumpy and Eve leans in to follow it closely. 

“Well, shit.”

“He didn’t know how long this had been going on, said he hadn’t payed attention to it.”

“When did he tell you?”

“A few days before, uh, before Berlin.”

“We have a mole in the service, Eve,” Carolyn says. 

Eve stares. “Can I go home?” She sighs, arms tight around herself. “Look, I’m sorry about my behavior but I’m very tired and I’m very upset, I just want to go home.”

“Eve.” Kenny’s voice is soft. “You might want to sit down.”

“Why?” But she does it anyway, looking up at the two of them. 

“I was able to trace the malware to its source.”

Carolyn is impatient. “It seems Frank Haleton has been giving information to MI6 about our organization; who we are, what we do.” Eve’s world starts to turn in its axis and her knuckles turn white around the armrests at her sides; seemingly the only thing keeping her from floating off into the space between atoms. “Your agent will be picking him up, alive, in two days. Your task is to erase any signs of his kidnapping after they’ve completed their mission.”

“You want me to work? After all this?”

“You’ve been assigned to an agent, and assignments do not wait for you or your sentiments.”

“I’m not a robot-!”

Carolyn’s voice splits through the air and she’s taller than Eve in that moment, breathing down in puffs that would cloud in artic air. “Might I remind you who we are? What our work entails? These things do happen, Eve. I wish you would remember that.” She gazes over Eve and Kenny longingly, throat bobbing as she swallows heavily and picks up her purse. It’s only a glance she gives them before leaving the office. 

It’s word enough. 

oooOOOooo

_I hate you_ , she wants to spit. _I hate this_.

_I want to filet you from groin to throat and smoke the tender meats of your ribs like I would a salmon_.

But she fumes in the backseat of the dingy and beat-up van, hungry now as she thinks of roe and crab legs begging to be cracked by hand and tooth. Her fingers drum endlessly on the passenger door and she sees her driver spare a glare at her in the rearview mirror. She smiles back something sarcastic and she watches him square his shoulders with a huff. Next to him, an old acquaintance from years past she doesn’t want to waste time thinking about.

Konstantin’s voice echoes in her head. _I asked one thing of you, Villanelle, to wait before Bulgaria, but no, you had to do as you wished and now you have put a lot of stress on you and on me-_

She had tuned him out then, and only perked when he had given her a punishment, of all things. 

As if she were a dog. 

A one-way ticket on some train to be picked up by people on much lower rungs than her and _work with them_. 

They continue their lone journey down the British backroads she would have rather never seen, and Villanelle sighs loudly, petulantly. Annoyingly. “I am bored.” Neither up front rise to it and she glances outside the dirty windows. Field upon field, a cow. It reminds her of home. 

Villanelle hits the back of the driver’s seat with her shoe; heavy combat boots that once broke skulls. He stiffens again but ignores her. She lowers her foot momentarily, resettles against the back of her place. 

“I,” she begins a drum beat with her heel against where his lower back rests, “Am,” and she punctuates each word with a harder hit. “Bored.” She’s halfway out of her seat now, arms straining as she puts all her lower body strength into slamming her boot into his chair. “I-!”

“Alright, alright!” Diego yells. “What do you want!”

She falls back, sated, and turns to look out the window again. “What are we doing here?”

“We’re driving.” She puts some force into her next kick and he grunts. “We are on a recovery mission.”

“Recovery?” she echoes. “I do not do recovery.” 

“Well, now you do.”

She scoots herself to the middle seat and leans forward so that she’s against the middle console. He glances at her and the van swerves slightly. She salivates after the feeling of the fear in his eyes and she takes a moment to think, satisfied. “Who is the target?”

“A bureaucratic member of the organization,” Nadia says. 

“If you’re going to fight us about taking him in, then you let us handle this and you can be the backup.”

“I cannot imagine being stuck in the back of this car’s trunk,” Villanelle's nose wrinkles and Nadia sighs. “What did he do?”

“He is a mole.”

Villanelle clicks her tongue before stuffing herself back into her seat, huffing. The clouds in the sky resemble puffs of smoke and marshmallows and downy sheep. She frowns. “This team sucks.”

oooOOOooo 

Elena had been more than happy to drive Eve to the outskirts of Bletcham. The office had been awkward since Bill’s passing; Kenny barely spoke and Carolyn was in much more often than before, stressing all three of them out to the point where Eve chose to come in during evenings to work now, especially on the days the rest of her bureau worked without her. 

Their conversation had been animated and Eve is thankful for the return to normalcy, even if it’s short-lived. They’re parked in a clearing not far from the village and she relishes every moment they have under the trees, windows open to let the breeze in. 

Finally, Elena’s burning question leaves from between her lips. “Have you met him? Your agent?” She laughs lightly. "Or her. Not very feminist of me."

“I haven’t.” Eve shakes her head. “I’m not supposed to and frankly, I don’t want to. They're more hassle than anything else.” She reaches for another chip out of Elena’s snack bag and chews on it thoughtfully. “I know it’s technically a promotion, but I miss hanging out with you guys.”

“I feel that. You know, I-“

Eve motions for her to pause, grimacing as her phone continues to ring obnoxiously from her purse in the backseat and she strains against her seatbelt to grab it, twisting inside the car. 

She swallows roughly. “It’s Frank.”

“Fuck, what?”

“Do I answer?!”

Elena shrugs frantically, panicking of her own right. “I don’t know! This isn’t our department!”

Eve’s grip falters on her own phone and she struggles to catch it again before it falls to their feet and with shaking fingers she slides the green call button over the screen. She puts the call on speaker phone. “Uh, hello?”

“Eve! Oh my god thank god-“

“Frank, we can’t hear you very well, I-“ Eve stares at Elena, lost and dumbfounded. “Are you crying?”

“They’re after me, god please help me I don’t want to die-“

“They’re after you?” Elena says. “Who’s after you?”

“MI6!” The man is speaking between heavy breaths and it sounds like he’s running and has been running. “The organization was here to pick me up and I was trying to get them off my tail and this woman came out of the bushes and shot them and-“

“Frank, stop,” Eve snaps. “Where are you?” She motions to Elena to start the car. 

“I don’t know,” he pants. “There’s fields and cows. Please, she’s coming after me I can see her, she has a gun, my god why did I think MI6 would be any nicer than you fucks and let me live?” He sobs momentarily. “Why do I know too much?”

Eve grimaces at Elena. “Listen, I’m going to have Kenny track your phone’s GPS, we’ll pick you up.” He starts to answer but she puts him on hold and double calls the boy back in London. It rings twice before he picks up.

“What’s happening over there?” he asks straightaway. He’s typing furiously. “This wasn’t the plan.”

“Can you track Frank for us? He’s in trouble: MI6 is here and they’re after him, we need him alive.”

“Is Elena driving? Elena, turn the car around and take a left onto the main road.”

As the young woman drives, Kenny can’t help himself from rattling off anxiously. “This wasn’t the plan,” he says again. “When did MI6 come into the picture? Why did nobody predict this?”

“They must not have wanted Frank to tell us anything about them,” Eve mutters. Elena takes a right and she sits forward in the passenger’s seat, pointing out of the windshield. “Stop the car, he’s in that field.” It’s barely put in park that she’s jumping out of it, leaving her door open and running towards the gate that fences the farming land from public road and she’s waving at Frank to give him her position, yelling at him to run faster. 

He doesn’t.

When he reaches her he’s tripping over the gate, falling to his knees and Eve helps him up, drags him towards the road. 

“Eve, thank you-“

“Shut up, Frank,” she sighs heavily. She gets him in the backseat of the car and fetches their pistols, handing the girl her own. “Elena, if he moves even an inch, if he breathes wrong, clock him.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“God, thank you-“

“We’re not doing this for you. Where are the agents?”

“About a mile back that way.”

She ignores the call to be careful thrown at her and starts to run across the tall grasses herself, wincing when branches threaten to twist her ankles but continuing her trek to the dirt road in the distance; too many people have died already on her watch and it certainly wouldn’t look good if her agent was part of that tally too. She prays silently.

The dust has already settled and a van is a spot on the horizon and Eve wants to cry at the scene left. 

A man, riddled with bullet holes and definitely dead, lays awkwardly against a rock, eyes open and glazed over. She’s met him before in the main offices and she knows he’s one of them. Or was. 

Whining audibly she looks around frantically, feeling as if the world is breaking around her and actually wishing it would swallow her up but finally she spies someone else she doesn’t recognize. 

Eve breathes in sharply. “Fuck, fuck!” She kneels beside the heap of a body on the wet ground, mud and blood turning a black color and seeping into her jeans, patting the girl down. She’s been run over, tire tracks mar her skin and in her wallet she’s got the Twelve’s call sign, something vague enough but that its members recognize, and her stomach turns. The area smells faintly of motor oil and shit and she palms the girl’s corpse-

She calls Elena. “Call it in!” she shouts. “We’ve got a live one!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh also! I need you guys' opinion. I have two new ideas for AU fics and I wonder which you'd rather have first (or at all): 
> 
> a) Eve is a Russian history PHD student and Villanelle is a Romanov ghost
> 
> or
> 
> b) Villaneve set in the future and in space; aliens and intergalactic fights galore
> 
> I already have rough plots, I would love your thoughts!
> 
> Twitter is @elwingedoctopus


End file.
